TUSCALOOSA, Alabama \u2014 Kirby Smart will be ready to get back to work shortly after Georgia arrives back in Athens on Sunday morning after a 20-17 win over Alabama.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs (6-0, 4-0 SEC) are expected to ascend to the No. 1 ranking, but Smart said more than once in his postgame press conference late Saturday night that \u201chumility is one week away,\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understood at Georgia that complacency has no place in the football building, and the team celebration will be limited to 24 hours.<\/p>\n
It took several standout performances, from Gunner Stockton, Dwight Phillips Jr., Chris Cole and KJ Bolden, most notably, for the Bulldogs to get their first win in Tuscaloosa under Smart, and the first win in Bryant-Denny Stadium for the program since 2007.<\/p>\n
Smart, now 3-7 in his career against Alabama and 2-2 against current Tide coach Kalen DeBoer, shrugged off the significance of winning in Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t played here much, you know? I mean, 2007, I was here on the other side,\u201d Smart said of the fact he was on Nick Saban\u2019s Alabama staff at that time. \u201cSo I don\u2019t get into all the whole first win in a long time here. I mean, I don\u2019t know how many we\u2019ve played here since then, three? I don\u2019t know. Yeah, I mean, so we\u2019re 1-2. What is everybody else? I mean, it\u2019s a hard place to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a hard game to grade, as the level of competition raised the bar on the Georgia players.<\/p>\n
QUARTERBACK (A-)<\/p>\n
Stockton was so cool in the clutch, completing 81.8 percent of his passes (18 of 22) for 249 yards and a touchdown along with a 14-yard rushing touchdown, it\u2019s hard to mark him down too much for the one interception he threw on a pass that was deflected.<\/p>\n
RUNNING BACKS (A)<\/p>\n
Dwight Phillips Jr. saved the day with his break-out, 17-carry, 120-yard career-high day (7.1 yards per carry), and Bo Walker (10 carries, 69 yards) added valuable punch when needed. <\/p>\n
The Bulldogs were down two men at the position, as Nate Frazier (ribs) was a late scratch after not appearing on the injury report this wee after Chauncey Bowens was announced out on Wednesday,<\/p>\n
RECEIVERS (A)<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs receivers caught everything thrown their way, often with Tide defensive backs draped all over them. Craig Dandridge Jr. led the corps with four catches for 45 yards, and Talyn Taylor and London Humphreys each had three catches for 43 yards, Humphreys scoring UGA\u2019s first touchdown on a 20-yard catch.<\/p>\n
OFFENSIVE LINE (A-)<\/p>\n
There were holding calls on Juan Gaston and Earnest Greene, but Smart made it clear he didn\u2019t see things he same way as the officials, and the way his O-Line run-blocked and protected, it only makes sense that he would quickly defend them.<\/p>\n
Alabama entered the game 10th in the nation in run defense, allowing 78.6 per game, and Georgia went for 206 rushing yards on the Tide.<\/p>\n
TIGHT ENDS (A-)<\/p>\n
Elyiss Williams made the 17-yard catch on third-and-10 in the final minutes that Smart said won the game for the Bulldogs, but Lawson Luckie also had two big grabs for 32 yards, and Ethan Barbour\u2019s 10-yard grab kept the chains moving. Jaden Reddell\u2019s explosive 53-yard catch and run was what took the lid off Alabama\u2019s defense early.<\/p>\n
Luckie also got called for a holding penalty that took a Phillips TD off the board, and Barbour was whistled for a false start. <\/p>\n
DEFENSIVE LINE (A-)<\/p>\n
The Georgia defensive front put Alabama\u2019s Keelon Russell in a \u201ctrap\u201d most of the night, applying pressure throughout and not allowing him too many opportunities to break contain.<\/p>\n
When Russell got loose it was with broken tackles or gutsy runs, and UGA ultimately won the battle by sacking him for a 9-yard loss on the Tide\u2019s final possession\u2014 the fourth sack of the night.<\/p>\n
Joseph Jonah-Ajonye got the pressure started early with a strip-sack forced fumbled that turned Alabama\u2019s opening drive back at the UGA 39-yard line. Quintavius Johnson also got into the sack column in the first half. <\/p>\n
LINEBACKERS (B)<\/p>\n
The linebacking corps knew they would be in for a tough night having to tackle Russell in the open field, and even Chris Cole let a sack slip away (though he got another sack within his 2.5 tackles for loss, along with two pass break-ups and QB hurry).<\/p>\n
Raylen Wilson led the Bulldogs with nine tackles, but he was also involve in the play where UGA missed a run fit, resulting in a 58-yard run that sparked the Alabama offense early.<\/p>\n
SECONDARY (A)<\/p>\n
The defensive backs were so good in coverage Russell often had to hold the ball, unable to find an open receiver, and that resulted in many of his incompletions and contributed to the four sacks.<\/p>\n
KJ Bolden and Rasean Dinkins had seven tackles each, and Khalil Barnes made five stops. Demello Jones went one-on-one with Alabama star Ryan Coleman-Williams to get a PBU in the end zone on a jump ball, and Bolden decked Coleman-Williams in the fourth quarter to force an incompletion.<\/p>\n
SPECIAL TEAMS (C-)<\/p>\n
Peyton Woodring had his first field goal miss of the night, from 39 yards, but he also had makes of 23 and 43 yards. Sacovie White-Helton muffed a punt that Blake Stewart jumped on to prevent what would have been a pivotal turnover. UGA allowed a 34-yard kick return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TUSCALOOSA, Alabama \u2014 Kirby Smart will be ready to get back to work shortly after Georgia arrives back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[5183,399,681,398,396,397,99,9224],"class_list":["post-879754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-alabama","tag-football","tag-georgia","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-uga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}